


The Human Form God Gave You

by Rrrowr



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Body Worship, First Time, Hand Jobs, Insomnia, Kissing, M/M, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-19
Updated: 2012-03-19
Packaged: 2017-11-02 05:06:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/365303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rrrowr/pseuds/Rrrowr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somehow Sam had expected that Castiel would just always be in that suit and that overcoat and hadn’t given the body underneath it much thought. Until suddenly it’s kind of all he can think about. [Set in S5.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Human Form God Gave You

It starts with Castiel’s hands.

Sam’s always been the kind of guy that pays attention to hands anyway. People do things with their hands — they touch, they pet, they claw — and Castiel does a lot with his. His hands were the ones that pulled Dean out of Hell. His hands are what he uses to destroy demons. Sam has seen those hands guide an angel blade with the smooth, ruthless efficiency of a soldier. 

Right now, Castiel’s hands have calluses on them — calluses and hang nails and jagged tips from where bits have been chipped away by hardship. It’s alarming to notice them, but unavoidable as Castiel helps Sam with his bandages while Dean is shouting at Bobby on the phone. They’re rough on Sam’s skin, nails catching on the gauze and in the cotton swabs. Afterward, Castiel picks at the corners, trying to clean them, so Sam gets out his grooming kit from his bag and spends the evening teaching Castiel how to trim his nails and file them down until they’re smooth.

“Thank you,” Castiel says when they’re done. “I was not aware that your bodies required such diligence. I will come to you should I encounter problems in the future.”

“Me?” Sam says, honestly surprised. “Why not Dean?”

Castiel’s eyes shift to look sidelong at Dean. “Your brother already has his burdens. I do not wish to add to them.”

“Right,” Sam agrees, feeling strangely uncharitable about it. It’s not that he minds helping Castiel. He just doesn’t like the idea of Castiel being soft about Dean, while Sam has the same worries about being one yes away from being possessed by Lucifer. “I guess my burdens are just peanuts in comparison, huh, Cas?”

“I don’t understand what that phrasing means,” Castiel says, examining his hands. He runs the pad of his thumb over the edges of his nails and his brow wrinkles — in confusion or concern, Sam isn’t sure. “Your history shows that you are a fighter and would not give in to Lucifer easily. I don’t think my brother could have chosen a more difficult vessel. While Dean is no different in this respect, his experiences in Hell have weakened him.”

For a split second, Sam feels pride swell in his chest, but Castiel keeps talking. “Of course, should you agree to be his vessel for any reason, he would crush your spirit in an instant.”

“Of course, he would,” Sam mutters bitterly.

“You seem resilient, however,” Castiel goes on to say, apparently not hearing Sam at all, though one of his hands drops to cover Sam’s knee. “That’s more than I can say for others.”

*

So that’s Castiel’s hands plus a double helping of anxiety and spite, and Sam wishes that it stopped there. The problem is that, despite Dean’s repeated reminders, Castiel has no concept of personal space. It simply does not occur to him that doors are closed for privacy, that clothes are worn for decency, that certain things belong to certain people and that he should not poke his nose in where it does not belong.

Castiel’s dwindling powers means that it starts with his hands showing wear and tear, but it very quickly becomes him succumbing to the afternoon heat. Right in the middle of a motel lobby, he sheds his coat first, shoving it into Sam’s arms as he pulls at his tie. He tilts his head back as he tugs at the top few buttons at his throat until the long line of his throat is exposed, shadows of a beard fading into skin.

It’s sort of fascinating to realize that Castiel’s growing a beard at all. Sam knows that Castiel’s always been sort of disheveled, but this growth has never been present before. The reminder of all the little ways in which Castiel’s powers are slipping through his fingers is enlightening. He’s hoarding what he has left and efficiently cutting off extraneous things in order to keep his strength for the times when it’s truly needed. It’s really humanizing.

“Hot?” Sam asks when Castiel grabs his coat back.

He brushes it down with his hand, folding it over one arm and then scrubbing at his hair as he answers. “Very.” Castiel’s nose wrinkles and he scratches at its bridge and up between his brows. He huffs at Sam, seeming put out. “I wish to bathe. I’ll require your assistance.”

With the way the request was phrased, Sam expects to be forced to lead Castiel through the mechanics of washing one’s self. Thankfully, Castiel meant only that he didn’t know how to change the faucet from bath to shower. Unfortunately, his lack of propriety means that, while Sam gathers toiletries and an extra set of Dean’s clothes, Castiel undresses almost immediately. Sam has to quickly avert his eyes to the ceiling to keep from seeing something he shouldn’t before he shoves the soaps into Castiel’s hands and flees.

*

So there’s the hands and then his neck and Sam resigns himself to the slow drop of his attention down Castiel’s body. Maybe the next thing he’ll notice is Castiel’s collarbones or maybe his belly button — Sam doesn’t know. He feels weird just acknowledging that he even does it, that he’s thinking about how Castiel is — right now — completely bare and doing something that humans do all the time.

When Castiel emerges, he’s damp and rosy-cheeked from the steam. Dean’s clothes are a little loose on him, a little long in the leg, though he doesn’t drown in them nearly as much as he would in Sam’s. He’s rolled his shirt sleeves up to his elbow and the towel is slung around his neck as he scrubs at his wet hair.

Sam thinks, so it’s the arms now, with a suffering frown and then drops his eyes to the floor.

Which is huge mistake because Castiel is barefoot.

The hem of his pants hang around his heels, dragging on the floor with every step. Sam picks out the long bones that lead to his toes and watches those toes curl in carpet. They’re not delicate feet, but they seem narrow — thin, graceful, a dancer’s feet. Sam finds himself riveted at the sight of them, at their nakedness and their implied vulnerability. They aren’t guarded by patent leather or rubber sole, having only thin skin to protect them. It’s odd to think of Castiel as exposed when Sam is so used to attaching him to words like inviolable and cogent — all his angelic strength taken as truth, taken for granted by virtue of how he held himself.

Because Castiel looks pretty much the same as before, Sam must constantly remind himself that his abilities are not what they once were. Yet Castiel is not diminished, even stripped of his powers. His stance is evenly spaced and his walk, a hard line. His steps aren’t blunt and strong like Dean’s; they cut across the floor like a blade, efficiency in motion, until he’s sliding into the seat across from Sam and breaking his otherworldly impression of him by slumping.

“Tired?” Sam ventures.

Castiel props his chin up on one hand. “No,” he says, but his eyes slide over to the beds all the same.

Dean’s already sprawled across one, headphones stuck in his ears and music playing so loud that its bass line is audible. He’s sleeping or appears to be, and Castiel observes him silently, licking his lips.

“You know, even if you don’t think you’re tired now, you should try and get some rest,” says Sam. He can’t really remember the last time Castiel's slept. It’s been a while — several days, at least.

Castiel’s mouth thins out. “Sleep is difficult,” he says carefully, like the admission of even needing to sleep is something he wished he didn’t have to explain. “Often, it’s more successful when I’m caught unaware.”

Secretly, Sam compares Castiel to a child, haunted by tantrums and migraines until he finally surrendered to sleep. He nods, then says, “I’ll make you a deal. Lie down and then I’ll distract you until you can sleep.” It seems perfectly reasonable to Sam. “It’d be better if you were some place comfortable anyway, right?”

Castiel concedes to Sam’s argument — mouth moodily dipping into frown — and heads toward the second bed, looking only briefly to where Dean is hogging every spare inch of his before climbing on top of the covers.

“Uh, Cas?” Sam pulls down the other side of the blankets. “Generally speaking, under the covers.”

“Of course.”

Castiel gives in grudgingly, and following Sam’s example, he shoves his legs under the blankets, pulling them to his chest and lacing his hands on top. They stay like that for a while — with Castiel staring up at the ceiling and Sam sitting against the headboard, feeling awkward — but just as Sam is beginning to feel like the silence is getting to him, Castiel turns to look at him.

“You said something about distracting me.”

Sam swallows. “Yeah.” Except the only ways that come to mind are not things that he wants to do while his brother is three feet away. “We can talk.”

“If you think that’s best,” he says, and when a few beats go by without Sam being able to think of what to say, Castiel opens up with a whammy: “I don’t like this body. It’s cramped and uncomfortable and has a high level of maintenance.”

Sam grins a bit, though. “Hate to break it to you, Cas, but all humans have to take care of their bodies like this.”

Castiel scowls, however. “Do you all have such an indefinite awareness of time?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Sam says, looking down at Castiel with his full focus.

“When I wake, I expect that only moments have passed, but instead, it’s hours,” explains Castiel. “At times, I feel as if time actually slows down. Other times, as if it’s too fast. As an angel, this wasn’t so.”

“Oh, that.”

But Castiel barrels on. “And are human minds always so chaotic? My focus used to be unparalleled, but now, the most insignificant details are capable of consuming my concentration. Scents and ideas and sensations. They crowd into my head and I can’t—” He cuts himself short and scrubs a hand across his eyes. “I just want to sleep.”

“It sounds like you’re making yourself into an insomniac, Cas,” Sam says. “I used to get like that too.”

Castiel’s fingers have a fine tremor in them. When he draws them down his jaw, his nails scratch through stubble hard enough to leave bloodless lines in their wake. Sam imagines that the frustration of adapting to a new lifestyle — of being trapped in form more limiting than his original — must be immense and is struck by the image of Castiel’s nails peeling back skin to reveal the dwindling grace within.

It’s weird how much Castiel reminds reminds him of Dean when they were younger — a good man, an obedient man, the kind of man that would go to any lengths to protect those for whom he cared. He’s got the stubbornness for it, the go-it-your-own-way attitude that means he plays his worries close to the chest until someone presses the right buttons. The only thing missing is the shameless, pleasure-seeking behavior, but that doesn’t seem like a Castiel kind of objective anyway, considering how distasteful he considers his current form. It just seems a shame that a guy like Castiel should find so little to like about his situation when Sam knows that, when the going gets tough, it’s the little things that make all the difference.

Very quickly, Sam looks over to where Dean is laying. He hasn’t moved except to shove his head under one of the pillows. “Would you like to know what really helped with my insomnia?”

Castiel’s expression is grateful as he nods, but he tenses up when Sam starts sliding deeper under the blankets. He goes absolutely rigid when Sam’s knuckles brush up against his side and even through his shirt, Sam thinks he can feel Castiel shaking under the strain.

“Shh,” he soothes. “You need to relax. I’m trying to help you.”

Castiel nods again — somewhat more frantically like he _wants_ to believe what Sam is saying. “Sam?”

“I’m just going to touch you,” Sam tells him. “It’ll feel good and afterward, you’ll be so tired that you’ll have to go to sleep. But you have to be quiet so that you don’t wake up Dean, okay?”

Dean is, as always, Castiel’s greatest weakness. Instead of replying out loud, he bites down on his lower lip and unlaces his fingers from on top of the blankets to allow Sam more access to his torso. Sam takes advantage of it before Castiel can start second-guessing himself.

Touching Castiel is sort of like petting a horse before it’s been broken in. There’s a part of his mind that understands that Sam means no harm, but the rest of him twitches under Sam’s palms as if he expects an attack. Sam remembers Jimmy being different — not exactly receptive to being touched, but neither did he flinch away. It takes a lot of Sam just sliding his hands across Castiel’s belly before it stops shaking with every pass. Very carefully, Sam widens the circle of his exploration. He catalogues all of Castiel’s reactions. His sides are ticklish and his nipples, largely unresponsive to gentle touches. Castiel stares at Sam’s profile with his bitten lip and endures every touch with heavy breath, but when Sam’s fingertips skitter across his collarbone, a little sound gets squeezed out of him.

“Good?” he asks in a hush.

“I don’t know,” replies Castiel, equally quiet. “How can you tell?”

It’s as open an invitation as Sam thinks he’s going to get, so he sweeps his hand down in one sharp line to cup Castiel’s dick through his pants. It’s warm and half-hard, but as Sam tightens his hold on it gently, it swells to meet him. Castiel jerks, gritting his teeth, but that does nothing to smother the grunt that punches out of him.

“That’s how you know,” Sam says.

One of Castiel’s hands comes up to grip Sam’s shoulder. It folds into the sleeve of his shirt, fisting it so hard that it stretches his collar and threatens to yank him down. Castiel responds fitfully to the stroke of Sam’s hand, sometimes trying to pull away and other times, pushing into his palm like it’s everything Castiel needs. He gasps, twisting toward Sam, and presses his cheek into the pillow, exposing the long line of his neck.

Sam doesn’t hesitate now. He’s in this far, so he might as well go for it. He leans over Castiel and starts mouthing at that throat, biting down when he encounters the hard scratch of beard under his lips. He sucks at Castiel’s Adam’s apple and runs his tongue over his collar bones. The entire time, he listens to Castiel whimper and gasp, trying so hard to stay quiet while Sam is doing his damnedest to make him moan.

It’s going to be over soon, Sam thinks. He knows because Castiel has finally settled into that rhythmic roll. Castiel’s figured out what works, what feels good. He rubs up into Sam’s hand and digs his nails into Sam’s back, whispering Sam’s name like it’ll help.

“That’s it, Cas,” Sam murmurs, biting up under Castiel’s jaw. “You’re gettin’ it.”

“Sam,” is all Castiel responds with.

He likes the way Castiel sounds with his name on his lips. It sounds pleading and Castiel is so very rarely pleading. So Sam lifts his hand away for an instant, and grabs onto Castiel’s thigh instead. Castiel whines immediately, blinking back to awareness with surprise at the sound. They both look over to the other bed, at Dean, who doesn’t so much as shift while the sound fades into Castiel’s heavy panting.

Sam doesn’t care about the whining beyond that he’s the one that’s making Castiel sound like that. He’s got his hand on Castiel’s leg here and he’s hooking his fingers under his knee, pulling Castiel toward him and then over him. Castiel sits astride Sam’s waist with the most bewildered expression on his face and doesn’t seem to notice the way his hips shift, rolling in slow circles so that he can rub against Sam’s belly.

“Kiss me,” says Sam and tacks on, “to keep from making noise,” in case Castiel needs a reason.

Castiel bends uncertainly, bracing himself on his hands at first but gradually down to his elbows when he realizes that he needs to be closer. He presses his mouth against Sam’s chastely and the kiss is fluttering, shaky at best. With that in mind, Sam doesn’t feel the least bit bad about fisting his hand in Castiel’s hair and maneuvering him into a better position.

In his hazy, pleasure-soaked mindset, Castiel is pliable and goes along easily, finally trusting Sam to lead him to the things that feel good. He opens up over Sam, kissing sloppily, but with increasing finesse as he picks up Sam’s moves and uses them against him. He even starts up that delightful roll in his spine again, thrusting against Sam hard when a hand strokes along his side.

A raspy, “Sam,” gets spoken into the air between them and Sam hears his appeal in it, the begging request for more.

Without relinquishing the taste of Castiel’s mouth, Sam sticks his hand between them. Instead of holding his dick through his pants again, he shoves his hand inside, grasping hot skin and feeling the wet press of Castiel’s cock against his fingers. Castiel bites down on Sam’s lower lip, already groaning and fucking into the circle of Sam’s hand. He breathes hot into Sam’s mouth, but he can’t sustain the kiss and still move the way he wants. So he breaks away, burying his face into the crook of Sam’s neck, smothering his sounds there when Sam squeezes around his cock and jacks him as fast and hard as he can between them.

“Good?” Sam says into the shell of Castiel’s ear, teasing cruelly.

Castiel laughs softly and follows it up with a light snap of his teeth. Then his breath shudders right through him, audible in his voice as he says Sam’s name again, and he comes. He falls on top of Sam without consideration for the amount of come that’s turning tacky between their bodies and probably staining their clothes. Castiel is heavy and it’s hard to breathe underneath him, but when he nuzzles under Sam’s jaw wearily, Sam is filled with such fondness that he really can’t think of a reason to dump him off to the side.

Well except maybe the the hard-on that’s giving him trouble now.

And maybe Dean, who’s totally wide awake and braced up on one elbow, grinning broadly at Sam in that shit-eating way of his — complete with brow wagging and sticking out his tongue at Sam’s dirty look.

“Good, Sammy?” Dean asks, smiling all the broader.

“Better than you any day of the week,” Sam shoots back.

Dean chuckles. “Yeah well, it’s hard to beat sheer enthusiasm.” Then he starts looking thoughtful, which is dangerous. “You know, maybe next time…”

“No,” says Sam at once. He isn’t even sure what Dean was going to suggest, but there’s no way it’s something he wants to agree with.

“I’m just sayin’ it might be easier—”

“Dean,” stresses Sam and then he gets distracted for a moment as Castiel tucks his hands under Sam’s ribs and resettles.

When Sam looks back at Dean, his brother is looking at Castiel with a mixture of softness and sadness. Dean says, “It’s good he’s finally sleeping.” He speaks very neutrally, but that doesn’t fool Sam. He can hear the concern. “Been a few days.”

Sam cups the back of Castiel’s neck and rubs his thumb against his hairline. “Yeah,” he agrees and hopes that Castiel will wake with a fresh appreciation for his body. “Real good.”


End file.
